1974 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 30th Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes

only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

THURSDAY, APRIL 4, 1974

Night Sitting

[ Page

2243 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

Committee of Supply: Department of Human Resources estimates. On vote 118.

Mr. Schroeder — 2243

Mr. Wallace — 2244

Hon. Mr. Levi — 2244

Mr. Wallace — 2244

Hon. Mr. Levi — 2244

Mr. Wallace — 2245

Mr. Phillips — 2245

Hon. Mr. Levi — 2245

Mr. Phillips — 2246

Hon. Mr. Barrett — 2246

Mr. Phillips — 2248

Hon. Mr. Levi — 2249

Mr. Phillips — 2250

Hon. Mr. Levi — 2250

Mr. L.A. Williams — 2251

Hon. Mr. Levi — 2252

Mrs. Webster — 2253

Mr. Curtis — 2254

Hon. Mr. Levi — 2254

Mr. Wallace — 2254

Hon. Mr. Levi — 2256

Mr. Wallace — 2257

Hon. Mr. Levi — 2257

Mr. Phillips — 2257

Hon. Mr. Levi — 2257

On vote 120.

Mr. Phillips — 2258

Hon. Mr. Levi — 2258

Mr. Wallace — 2258

Hon. Mr. Levi — 2259

On vote 122.

Mr. Phillips — 2260

Hon. Mr. Levi — 2260

Mr. Wallace — 2260

Hon. Mr. Levi — 2261

Statement

Appointment of committee to examine into legislative facilities.

Mr. Speaker — 2261

Hon. Mr. Barrett — 2262

Mr. Curtis — 2262

Mr. Smith — 2262

Mr. Speaker — 2262

The House met at 8:30 p.m.

Introduction of bills.

Orders of the day.

The House in Committee of Supply; Mr. Dent in the chair.

ESTIMATES: DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES

(continued)

Vote 115: income security division, $669,024 — approved.

Vote 116: field service, $14,604,625 — approved.

Vote 117: health and Pharmacare divisions, $332,574 — approved.

On vote 118: social assistance, $264,476,000.

MR. H.W. SCHROEDER (Chilliwack): Strange how the Premier's voice trails away as soon as the figures get into the millions.

Here's $264 million worth of social assistance. I have one

observation and one request. The observation is this: In comparing the

cost of the distribution in the estimates for 1974 with 1973, it is

drastically increased. According to the "pie" for the previous year the

cost of distribution was about 4 per cent.

This year the total assistance is $264 million and the total

estimates are $284 million — leaving about $20 million of expenditure

in distribution, which is nearly 10 per cent. With all respect, Mr.

Chairman, to the Minister, the cost of administration is too high.

Then, just this request: We are providing, under code 045,

guaranteed minimum assistance for various categories of people

including the blind, the disabled and the handicapped. But there is a

kind of person in British Columbia for whom we do not provide. We do

not provide adequately and we never have, and it doesn't matter whether

you go back 20 years or 45 years or 100 years; we never have adequately

provided for widows.

I talked about this before but not this year. I believe this is an

area that the Minister needs to take into consideration for several

reasons; but most of the reasons revolve around the security of the

children that are involved when there is a widow.

Here's a family unit that is moving along without any anticipation

of a catastrophe which might be just around the corner. The husband is

taken or the wife is taken, leaving a widower or a widow and a family — many times a young family — and the earning ability is diminished. It

doesn't make any difference whether the family is old-fashioned and

believes in a breadwinner being the father, and the mother stays home

and cares for the children in the house, or whether they subscribe to

the new scheme whereby both parents are out earning. In any instance,

earning ability is diminished. Here in most cases, particularly in the

cases where there is a widow, we have a person saddled with the

responsibility of becoming father and mother all at once, with a young

family, and no one to care for them unless they hire someone to come in.

In the instance of a widow, usually the earning capacity diminishes

by more than 50 per cent. More practically, it diminishes by 60 to 70

per cent. Here's a widow possibly bringing in $300 or $400 a month and

not able to sustain the family at the level to which they have become

accustomed. House payments remain the same. Car payments, if there were

some — in most instances there are — remain the same. The cost of

education and the cost of family responsibilities remains the same. Yet

the earning ability is cut by as high as 70 per cent.

What do we do in this instance? If the husband is only maimed and he

becomes disabled, we have a guaranteed income because he is

handicapped. His income, together with the wife's income, still can

amount to $600 and there is adequate care. At least they can survive.

But just as soon as the husband dies, the wife is left destitute; not

$200 for handicapped — nothing.

Here we have widows who call upon MLAs. I have had the experience to

go to the homes and to deal with people who throw up their hands in

horror and despair and they say, "There is no way that we can care for

our families. Either we have to sell the home, we have to sell the

automobile, we have to rely upon relatives — I could go on all

evening, Mr. Minister, but the truth is that here is a category of

individuals for whom we have not cared.

I don't know why we discriminate against the widow. We like to shrug

our shoulders and say, "This is a federal responsibility." Indeed, they

have a measure of care, but it is ridiculously low. Here's an area

where I think the Minister could become a superstar overnight.

I think it is a little late to think of it in terms of a budget for

this coming year, but out of $264 million I think that we should

subscribe some kind of support for these dear people. Surely to

goodness they have suffered enough. Surely to goodness, rather than to

make their lives in the future more difficult, we could make it easier.

I don't think I am asking for something ridiculous. I think that

this is something that even the Good Book gives us responsibility for,

because rather than to be classed as last in the area of responsibility

[ Page 2244 ]

society, these are listed first: "For the widows

and the fatherless" — and I quote from the Good Book. I think that I

have to hang my head in shame to think that we are in 1974 and still

have not accepted a provincial responsibility for these individuals. I

would like to say to the Minister, "Here is your opportunity." In one

of those few communiques that come out of your office, let your next

one be one of advice that the widows shall be cared for.

I think I am not asking too much and I hope that just at the spur of

the moment the Minister could give me an answer in the affirmative. I

would like to go back and say to Mrs. Peterson, who was my last

communicant, that there is hope in British Columbia.

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): This is a very substantial vote

and I don't think we should pass over it lightly. I would like to try

and stay within order when I discuss this item, Mr. Chairman. But

referring particularly to 036, which is described as "grants," I don't

think we can completely discuss this without referring back to vote 116

under 040 — "integration of the Vancouver area."

Between the two we are talking about $6.2 million. I wonder if the

Minister in general terms, perhaps without impinging on anticipated

legislation, could give us some idea what this $4.2 million is to be

used for in terms of grants. I presume that it is related in some way

to the envisaged structure at the community level for the dispensation

of social services.

If this is the case, it seems to me that the attempt to provide the

social services through the various community resource boards is very

directly dependent on the Minister financially. I wonder if this

doesn't place the Minister in the very distinct position of having a

fair amount of autocratic control over the spending of very large sums

of money through these new community resource boards.

This may all be an unnecessary fear on my part. But, as I look at

this financial picture, it doesn't leave the Minister in a position of

very direct influence and control over these boards if, in fact, they

function through the mechanism of this grant or grants to the extent of

$4.2 million. Perhaps the Minister could enlarge on that.

HON. N. LEVI (Minister of Human Resources): Dealing with the

grants, those are the grants that the government is involved in giving

to the various community groups, non-profit operations, that exist

around the province. It's this enormous number of applications and

grants that we make — day-care grants, grants for senior citizens and a

whole range of programmes that we are funding, that were funded there

and that we have picked up. We have increased that kind of contribution.

One of the problems we were having with grants was that, with some

of the programmes we were looking at, there were very low salaries.

Some of them result from taking over in part operations of LIP, OFY and

even Horizons for Seniors operations.

You referred to the other vote, which is in relation to the

integration in Vancouver. That, of course, is assuming the function of

what the city was assuming, plus all of the rentals and that operation

in the Vancouver area, that $2 million.

What we are talking about is similar to what the Member was talking

about before dinner. Although Lifeline comes under the Alcohol and Drug

Commission, we have like operations we fund directly in grants, not in

relation to drugs but in relation to the one the first Member for

Victoria (Mr. Morrison) was talking about, the Seven Days for Seven

Mothers. In the annual report there is, under community grants, a

partial list of some of the kinds of grants we are making. We are into

the business of funding an enormous amount of programmes in just about

every community in this province, including, as I mentioned again this

afternoon, over $400,000 in transportation services. That comes within

that sub-vote.

Is that satisfactory?

MR. WALLACE: I take it from the Minister's comments that this

$4,200,000 is not related in any way to the future programme of

dispersing services through the community resources board. That

$4,200,000 will still be directed from the Minister's department to

various causes — to use a sort of umbrella phrase — apart from those

services which will be directly provided for through the community

services board.

HON. MR. LEVI: Let me see if I can clarify it a bit better.

In Campbell River you have 16 different groups being funded, either

from the government or from other non-profit operations. That global

budget which will come out of there, which will be presented

subsequently to the government in terms of a global budget, will

include some of the grants we have been making.

But we have broadened that grant programme anyway. We will not, in

one fell swoop, be going into that kind of community resources board

operation all over the province. It would take some time to integrate.

So many communities will be getting grants directly to the programmes.

Eventually, as we are able to develop this into a global budget

structure, yes, some of those will be incorporated. But the Vancouver

situation, the $2 million you referred to, of course is an expense we

picked up in terms of the operating of the Vancouver services. They

represent about one-third of the total system in this province in terms

of the social assistance programme. So that is what that is.

[ Page 2245 ]

MR. WALLACE: I'm sorry, I am still not completely clear. Is

it the ultimate aim of the department, then, that all this money will

finally be funnelled through the community resources board? In the

interim phase, some of the money is going directly, some of it will be

going through the community resources board, but the ultimate goal will

be to centralize all the dispensing of funds for all social services

through the resources board.

HON. MR. LEVI: Yes, in relation to communities that is exactly the objective.

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): There are just a

couple of questions I would like to ask here, and I ask them out of

sincerity. As has been said before, the vote of the Minister of Human

Resources, which is mainly social welfare so far as I am concerned, has

increased considerably. I somehow feel — and I would like the Minister

to correct me if I am wrong — that we are more concerned about

providing services for those who are on social welfare than we are in

trying to assist those who are there in that state of getting off

social welfare. I would like the Minister to explain to me what

positive action is being taken to assist those who find themselves in

the position where they have to apply for social welfare to get them

off that.

I was just reading an

article the other day put out by the Canadian

Federation of Independent Businessmen, which represents the small

independent businessmen in this Dominion of ours, who, I feel, are the

real producers in this country — not big business but the real

producers, the ones who are paying the bulk of the taxes in this

province. There is just a short note here where it says, "Half of the

recipients" — and they are referring to unemployment insurance — "are

under 25 and receive payments of up to $113 a week." Our social welfare

payments are very reasonable too. A person could find himself — and I

am particularly referring to a number of young, able-bodied persons who

could enter our work force but through the use of drugs or alcoholism

or broken homes — being referred to the social welfare department to

receive payments.

It is the young people I am more concerned about than anybody else

because there are many people — and I have always felt this — who are

on social welfare who are very deserving. I feel we should look after

those people. But what about the number of young people who are on

social welfare? Some of them are young widows, as referred to by the

Member for Chilliwack (Mr. Schroeder). Some of them are young males,

some of them are young females. They find themselves in a destitute

position; they go to a social worker and they are going to be looked

after. What courses are we providing for these people to put them back

into the mainstream of life?

This may seem remote, but the Minister of Transport and

Communications (Hon. Mr. Strachan) has said if you take a driver's

licence, for instance, you will be reinstated because you will be a

better driver. Are we providing these young mothers with courses in

money management, nutrition for their families — any type of course at

all that would provide them with assistance to get back into the

mainstream of life?

If we don't, if we give more services to these people — and I am

referring again to the younger people below the age of 25 who are

able-bodied and find themselves on social welfare due to one

circumstance or another — and if we do not provide education and try

and show these people where they can get back into the mainstream of

life, this whole situation will enlarge. As they get married, and get

married on social welfare, their children go on social welfare, we

might inevitably be plunging head first over the brink of the bank

which takes us into the mire of social welfare, and become a social

welfare state where no one really wants to work.

I realize the Minister is a specialist in this; I realize our

Premier has had a great deal of experience in this. But I would like to

see us embark on a positive method of rehabilitation, particularly to

our young people, whereby we make some positive steps and endeavour to

get them off social welfare and back into the mainstream of life.

HON. MR. LEVI: I would just like to point out one thing to

the Member. It is one thing to say that single people on unemployment

insurance get $110 a week, which is very reasonable, and then somehow

to compare it to what they get on welfare: $140 a month. It has no

relationship in terms of being reasonable to $110 a week. That's what

single people get.

There is a turnover of some 3,000 a month on the welfare rolls. Our

indications are that young, eligible, employable people do not stay on

welfare for more than about two months. It is a kind of interval where

they are either between jobs or their employment has run out. There is

a quick turnover.

But in terms of what we are doing, we have an employment programme

running for about nine months. We employed both in the government — assisted municipalities and non-profit organizations, some 600-odd

people through the department.

We have 4,000 people, mostly single women with families and older

people, on the opportunities programme which enables them to make $50

or $100 by working 25 or 50 hours, and getting some experience and some

confidence about moving into the work force. We have a monthly report.

In February, over 1,700 people moved off welfare into employment. There

is a continuing move in this area; this has been going on for some time.

[ Page 2246 ]

We have, within most of the offices in the department, job placement

coordinators. We have expanded this from an experiment which we watched

in Surrey. I said, let us go ahead and get it into our department. We

have in just about every office a placement coordinator. This is very

effective in this way. They not only place them in jobs; they steer

them to Canada Manpower for courses or for upgrading courses. There is

a lot of movement in terms of this rehabilitation.

In terms of people who have handicaps we have an aid to the

handicapped under the Department of Health, and that is all part,

again, of moving people back into the mainstream. So we don't have a

great deal of people staying on. We've had a hard-core group of people

who are not employable. That group is a very difficult group to deal

with.

Let me just say one other thing. We have a social assistance vote,

118, but I think if you look at it we give service to more people in

this province who are not on social assistance than are on social

assistance. There are people who get day-care subsidy while working.

There are people who get homemaker care who are working in some cases

and can make some contribution. All of the programmes related to

children are preventive programmes in terms of allowing parents to go

into the community.

In terms of the single employable person, the turnover is

phenomenal. We look quite closely at people who tend to want to remain

on. And they are referred to job placement. Yes, we have occasionally

the hard case. Then we've got to deal with that hard case and that's

sometimes a heck of a lot of trouble. But I must say that by and large

because of the attitude the young people have they get on and they get

off very quickly — there is a constant flow. But we have built up and

are continuing to build the rehabilitation area. And that's one of the

more important ones.

MR. PHILLIPS: One further comment, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate

the Minister's remarks, but it seems to me just a very short time ago

that I got the attitude that it is beneath the dignity of a person to

be on the end of a shovel, or to force a person who is in good physical

shape to go and shovel snow or shovel gravel or what-have-you. If I'm

wrong in this respect I wish you'd bring it to my attention and tell me

I am wrong.

However, I also feel that there are many people who are receiving

social benefits, regardless of age…. Believe you me, I'm not against

the handicapped and I feel we should look after them, but there are

people who are physically capable of doing manual labour. A lot of this

manual labour is not the greatest. Some of it I've done myself when I

was starting on my road through life. But I hate to think that we have

the attitude that it is beneath the dignity of these people to shovel

snow or shovel gravel or do some of the menial jobs that could be done.

I think it's further below their dignity, Mr. Chairman, through you

to the Minister, to see these same people on the streets immediately

after they received their welfare cheque to be drunk and disorderly. I

want to tell you there was a case in my own constituency the day before

yesterday where two people who are on social welfare — they were

natives, I don't mind saying it — who were walking down the street both

in a very inebriated state and this happened in front of my young son.

All of a sudden they started fighting and one of them got down and he

beat the living devil out of the other.

This sort of thing carries reverberations completely through the

community. These were two able-bodied people who certainly had some

courage or they wouldn't have been fighting. One probably lost an eye

and half his teeth. Is it really beneath their dignity to put them to

work and to force them to work when they're going….

This goes on, I'm sure, in other communities. We hear of these

things going on. I don't like to use the word "force," but where do we

end up with these type of people? What do we do with them? What is the

course of rehabilitating? Maybe there's no answer — I don't know. But

it is a problem, I'm sure you must realize. As I say, I'm sure you

don't want to say we must force them to go to work. But wouldn't those

people doing a full day's work be much more benefit to themselves and

feel a greater responsibility to the community if they were to go out

and do a good day's labour and go to bed at night tired and exhausted

and know that they have to get up? Is it possible to have the

communities in which these people live maybe have special instructors

to have them improve facilities in the community? I don't know. This is

a problem.

I'm sure you're questioning yourself as to where we go with this

type of habitual person. When you're in business — and I don't mind

saying I'm speaking for the small business person who tries to hire,

and there are many menial jobs in the service industry where we have to

hire people and we sometimes can't even pay as much as they can receive

on unemployment insurance. Yet you see this type of deal.

I'm suggesting to you, Mr. Minister, that you're going to have to

take a harder line. Honestly, Mr. Chairman, I would like to have the

Minister….

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier and Minister of Finance): I want to

say a few words about this, Mr. Member, because as the Minister of

Finance I have to help to get the money from the taxpayers.

I'm puzzled because for 18 months since we've been the government

you, as the official opposition, have been saying that we're taking

away the freedom

[ Page 2247 ]

of the people. Now, I want to relate this to what

the Member's advocating. He wants the state to order people to go to

work, but if we brought that bill in would he stand up in this House

and say that welfare recipients don't have the choice in our society?

Only the rich do. That's the paradox of your so-called free enterprise

nonsense.

We just had a criminal case involving cement companies fixing prices

and gouging literally thousands of Canadians right across this country.

Now, they're welfare recipients. They have received welfare receipts in

terms of tax dodges and they have been involved and convicted in fixing

prices. You don't come to us and tell us about their freedoms, but you

come to us on the basis of saying you've seen two Indians fighting in

the streets, and that if they'd spend a good day working they could

fight after work.

There's no one more interested than we are, Mr. Member, through you,

Mr. Chairman, to see that people have dignity and self-respect through

employment. But you almost leave the inference that the native Indian

population — I know you don't mean it that way but you gave us that

illustration — or that a welfare recipient somehow drinks up his money.

It leaves the impression that the rich are entitled to drink and to

have a different set of mores because they do it at a different level

than the poor. Human behaviour doesn't know any difference on the basis

of money, Mr. Member.

I don't understand how you can stand up in this House and ask the

Minister to come in with some kind of compulsory work programme that's

related to your ethic about welfare recipients. I've never seen a shred

of evidence related to any ethic about the super rich in our society.

You cannot have a moral judgment based purely on someone's income.

If the state has a responsibility to provide a level of income that has

been accepted by both free enterprises and socialists through some

welfare system, then you can't add the penalties of some kind of

judgmental punishment because they're at the lower end of the scale. We

want people to work. But the state has limited rights. I find a touch

of red-neckism comes out from that Member and some of his colleagues

when they try to leave the impression that this level of economic scale

is the one that the state should bear down on.

Just as bad, Mr. Member, as the extreme leftist giving us the

rhetoric about the super rich is the extreme rightist giving the

rhetoric about the poor.

Mr. Member, your policies are nothing but crepes suzette. I'm not

against the French; I'm worried about your stomach after yesterday's

complaints. The greatest priority that Member has to fight in this

House is sandwiches — not Golden, not Invermere, but sandwiches.

(Laughter.) The Member from the Sandwich Islands — there he is. He's

attacking Kraft in the dining room.

Mr. Member, it's not that easy….

MR. CHABOT: It's graft in the dining room.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! To the Hon. Member for Columbia River, I would ask him to withdraw any inference of wrongdoing.

HON. MR. BARRETT: I ask the Member to withdraw the allegation of graft in the dining room….

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! I would ask the Hon. Member for

Columbia River…. I'm not sure to whom he was directing his remarks but

I think it's an inappropriate thing to accuse people in a blanket form

of something of this nature and I would ask him to withdraw the remark.

MR. CHABOT: Mr. Chairman, I didn't accuse any particular Member of this House. You know who is in charge of the dining room.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! Order, please. I. would ask the Hon.

Member to withdraw any imputation of wrongdoing against anyone on the

floor of this House.

MR. CHABOT: It's most unusual to see food coming out of the dining room on a Sunday afternoon for the Speaker's private party.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. I would ask the Hon. Member to

withdraw any imputation of wrongdoing. Evidently his remarks are

directed against the Speaker.

MR. CHABOT: Well, I….

MR. CHAIRMAN: Without any comments, just withdraw the

remarks. Order! Order! I would ask the Hon. Member to withdraw the

imputation of wrongdoing against the Speaker.

MR. CHABOT: I suggest to you that in due course through

public accounts we will find out; but in the meantime, until such time

as that happens, I'll withdraw.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would ask the Hon. Member to withdraw without

comments — just to withdraw the remark unconditionally, without any

qualifications. Would the Hon. Member withdraw?

MR. D.E. SMITH (North Peace River): Yes, on a point of order. The Member for Columbia River (Mr. Chabot) has made a suggestion regarding something

[ Page 2248 ]

that we know to be true: that food went out of this dining room on a Sunday, the first time it has ever happened.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! Order!

MR. SMITH: It has never happened since we have sat in this House as a Legislature and had a dining room in this House.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! On your point of order, I would point

out that should there be any idea in your mind of any wrongdoing of any

nature, the proper method of dealing with it is by a substantive motion.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Hear, hear!

MR. CHAIRMAN: And I would ask the Hon. Member not simply to make remarks on the floor of the House.

MR. SMITH: The Chairman knows any substantive motions may or may not be called.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! Order!

MR. SMITH: At the discretion of the Premier they'll be called or not be called.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Oh, my God!

HON. A.B. MACDONALD (Attorney-General): These people are unreal.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. It is the long-established

practice under parliamentary rules that no imputation be made against

any Hon. Member on the floor of the House or anywhere. If the Hon.

Member has reason to believe that there is any wrongdoing, the proper

procedure is to put a substantive motion on the order paper. I would

ask the Hon. Member for Columbia River to withdraw the remark that he

made, unequivocally, without any qualifications.

MR. CHABOT: Mr. Chairman, I withdraw. You know that I have doubts, but I….

MR. CHAIRMAN: Will the Hon. Member be seated, please?

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Chairman, the conclusion of what I am

saying is that you cannot make group decisions, as suggested by that

Member. The possibility of work and the possibility of avoiding welfare

is the desired goal of every Member of this House, but…. Yes, it is. It

certainly is.

Mr. Member, we have done more in terms of rehabilitating people on

welfare in 18 months than that government did in 20 years. The former

Minister of Welfare stood in this House and said he was going to get

the deadbeats off welfare. That was his attitude. That was his

Christian approach to people in need. We went through that deadbeat

scene once before.

Mr. Chairman, that Member is the best Minister of Welfare this House

has ever seen. But to make judgmental decisions based on the level of

incomes is just as invalid from the extreme left as it is from the

extreme right. I think that sometimes your philosophy is so far from

what William Aberhart talked about, so far from the foundations of that

great movement of Social Credit that came out of radical populism on

the Prairies, that you should rethink your name, because you display a

right-wing attitude that is completely out of touch with reality.

MR. PHILLIPS: What I have just witnessed in the House again is typical of what we have witnessed since….

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! Order, please! I would just ask the Hon.

Member for South Peace River, if he is speaking on a point of order, if

he would….

MR. PHILLIPS: I'm not speaking on a point of order. I'm speaking on the same point that I rose on originally, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! Order, please. The Hon. Member for South

Peace River, I had recognized the Hon. Member for West Vancouver–Howe

Sound (Mr. L.A. Williams).

MR. PHILLIPS: Mr. Chairman, can I finish my point?

MR. CHAIRMAN: I understood that you were rising on a point of order and I was recognizing the Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound.

MR. PHILLIPS: No. I'm rising on the same point that I was….

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Hon. Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound

has yielded the floor, so I will now recognize the Hon. Member for

South Peace River. It is just a matter of courtesy, Hon. Member.

MR. PHILLIPS: Mr. Chairman, I have to think, when I hear the

remarks of our Premier, who is a social worker and very interested in

social work, that there was no necessity whatsoever for him to get up

[ Page 2249 ]

and try and twist the words that I said — which I

said in all sincerity. He twisted them around. He doesn't realize that

this government will be able to provide the services for people on

social welfare better than any province in Canada because of the fact

that, through the previous administration, we have developed the

natural resources so these can be returned to the people.

But I do want to point out, Mr. Chairman, that Canadians are not the

only ones that are responding to the backlash of tremendous social

welfare and the cost of tremendous social welfare programmes. It is

happening throughout the world. In Canada we are paying approximately

40 per cent of our Gross National Product into social welfare

programmes.

What really bothers me, Mr. Chairman, is that we have so many

specialists — and it's just like the drug scene. We have so many

specialists in the programme that I sometimes feel that we are going

off the deep end. What we need are a few people on there who can take

an overview; because where we are heading, Mr. Chairman, is deeper and

deeper, regardless of what the Hon. Premier tries to point out in this

Legislature.

I asked some straightforward, simple questions of concern, and I am

concerned, Mr. Chairman, through you to the Minister. I think it was

derogatory of the Premier to get up and try and twist what I was saying

around into an anti-social welfare programme. Certainly I would give

the Minister of social welfare more intelligence than I would give the

Premier when it comes to that point.

But I would like to know what programmes we have. Maybe you don't

believe in a hard line, but I want to tell you that there are many

people in business who work long hours — who are forced to work long

hours. How much longer are they going to be forced to work long hours,

or how much longer are they going to work long hours on their own, to

try and be the producers in this country of ours when they see the type

of thing going on that is going on. You know it's going on.

Maybe it's a very small percentage, and of course it's a smaller

percentage than the Premier points out…. He always has to pick out and

classify some rip-off artist. He doesn't realize it is the people who

are small businessmen and those who aspire to be small businessmen that

are the real producers of this country.

You can pick all the big corporations you want to. They are not the

producers in this nation of ours, and neither are they the people who

are producing the taxes that pay the social welfare rolls, Mr.

Chairman. Every time that Premier of ours and Minister of Finance gets

on his feet he always wants to present and pick out some special case.

What I am saying is, Mr. Chairman, through you to the Minister, the

tax burden falls on the small businessman in this country, because he

hasn't got the wherewithal. Maybe sometimes big business has to find

the tax deviations. It is the small businessman that's paying the taxes

in this country. It is the small businessman that's really the producer

in this country, and it is the small businessman, Mr. Chairman, through

you to the Minister of social welfare and Human Resources, that is

getting disgusted with paying the taxes to carry this cumbersome burden.

All he wants is to be reassured, and that's all I ask for him: to be

reassured that something positive is being done; that you are trying to

rehabilitate the people; that you are not keeping people on the social

welfare roll that could be instrumental in producing in this country of

ours and working for the services that have to be provided for people.

If we plunge head-first over the brink into the mire of a socialist

state, it is you who will have failed, not only those on social

welfare. You will have failed them. Certainly you will have failed them

by not getting them back into the mainstream of life.

But you will also fail those who are producing the taxes to provide

the services for the people who really need it — the aged and the

handicapped. They must have those services, and we must provide them

and we do it willingly. Surely to goodness, Mr. Chairman…. I know the

Minister of Human Resources knows what I'm talking about and I hope he

will give us some positive information to reassure us that the small

businessmen and the real producers, and those who aspire to be

businessmen, are not going to be continually ripped off by taxes

providing services to people who should be out there producing

themselves.

HON. MR. LEVI: Mr. Chairman, let me reassure the Member. I

said earlier that we have an average of 1,700 people a month going off

welfare into employment; that's the first stage.

MR. PHILLIPS: How many are coming on?

HON. MR. LEVI: Coming on? Probably 2,000 or 2,500 rolling

over at the rate of 2,500 to 3,000. We can't identify exactly; what we

do know is that there's a great movement and a lot of it sometimes is

reflected in terms of what the time of the year it is.

Last year we were involved in funding the hostel programme. [n

conjunction with the hostel programme we did an employment placement

programme in the Okanagan Valley; we connected the young people up with

the orchardists. I had several letters last year and also spoke to the

people in the B.C. Tree Fruits about the kind of work these young

people did. It was community employment.

The federal government, through the Minister of Manpower and

Immigration (Hon. Mr. Andras), have now embarked on a community

employment

[ Page 2250 ]

programme which is based on the programme we did

last year. I met with Mr. Andras; I gave him the report last October.

Then when we met this time, they had developed a programme around the

thing we had started. We were concerned as to whether we should be able

to plug in young transient Canadians who were travelling to see the

country, and it worked. The orchardists were very excited about it. In

the Okanagan Valley there were three people who were doing nothing but

this kind of placement. It's a community employment programme.

I'm meeting Monday again with the Canada Manpower people again to

discuss the outcome of this thing that we did last year in relation to

what we're going to do this year.

We had an employment within the department, some 600 people were

employed, are still employed, and will be employed until the end of

June. We have an opportunities programme which involves over 4,000

people. They move off into the workstream. People are referred.

I appreciate that the small businessmen play a tremendous function

in this province and in the country in terms of their tax contribution.

We are very much aware of this. The Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. King)

in a release two weeks ago announcing his programme has a

section there

which will make provision for assistance to small businessmen in terms

of that summer employment programme, but that will presumably come up

in the legislation. So, we're moving towards the kind of thing that

you're talking about.

There is far more activity in terms of employment referral going on

now than there ever was, and, as I said, based on an experimental

programme that was done in Surrey.

I can assure the Member that we are very aware of it. We've always

been concerned about the fact that there is a lack of connecting young

people, or even people on welfare, with the jobs. But we now have that

connection through the placement coordinators that we have. When you

see what is usually the exception and not the rule in the kind of

example you've described, those are different kinds of problems.

Those are the kinds of problems that we have to address ourselves to

in kind of a long-range way. You know, it simply isn't an answer that

you give somebody a full day's work, because most of the people who

have been on welfare, who are the hard core, couldn't do a full day's

work. There is a transition period, and that's what we're getting into.

Work activity is what we've done — work-activity programmes through the

Recreation and Conservation department, as we had last year.

There's a great movement, and I can say without fear of being

contradicted, that several thousands of people have moved through the

system through that employment basis. Now that's a lot more than was

happening previously because that's one of the focuses. It's not

because people are breathing down our neck on that, it's because we

know that most of the people we deal with want to work anyway. Nobody

is going to go from work to welfare when welfare for a single person is

equal to about 70 cents an hour. There are very few people that will go

that route, but many of them will go the other route.

I can assure the Member that those programmes will be increased and

broadened. I feel that we've had great success in the past year and I

hope to be standing here next year giving you other information about

greater successes as well, particularly in the area where you come

from, because we have such coordinators up there as well.

MR. PHILLIPS: One further question. Could the Minister advise

me the approximate percentage of people coming on welfare who come on

welfare due to alcoholism? You know: where they've come down the line;

they've lost their jobs; they've gone onto Unemployment Insurance and

then they've sort of dropped down to the point where there's nothing

left for them so they go to the social welfare department.

One is alcoholism; No. 2 is drug addiction; where a person is

employed, he goes on, say, marijuana, gradually gets into drug

addiction, loses his job, goes on Unemployment Insurance for a period

of time and then sort of degrades down to the point where — and I'm

talking about young people, don't get me wrong when I say degrades — to

sort of a point where he's run out his Unemployment Insurance. What

percentage of young people — I'm referring to younger people below the

age of 25 — what percentage of people, both male and female, do you

have coming onto the welfare rolls that you feel are from these

circumstances?

I realize there are those who haven't the proper education, there

are those who come from broken homes and who sort of degraded that way,

but from those two phenomena of our society, drugs and alcoholism, how

many younger people do we have coming into social welfare? How many of

those that you have who reach that level are you able to get off and

upgrade and bring back into the mainstream of life?

I think this is a very important question because it's our young

people, really, that we must be concerned about because they are the

ones who are going to propagate themselves and bring more younger

people into the stream based on the life that they lead.

HON. MR. LEVI: You must remember you can't just isolate one

group. Let me say this: previously there used to be a very glib kind of

statement that only 15 per cent of people on welfare were

[ Page 2251 ]

employable. And given those terms of reference,

three or four years ago that was true. But for instance, we've

attempted to create a whole range of employment for single women and

older women — homemaker service, into the day-care area, and onto the

opportunities programme. But we find two things about young people who

come on welfare, and remember that the rollover is quite large: they

have a lack of training first of all, a lack of adequate education and

a lack of training. Those are the two common things we find with them.

Sure we find some people who have gone through the drug scene — the

young people. But you know it's passed, that kind of scene; it's on the

wane to some extent. Those are the two basic problems.

Now, if you want to refer to the other group which is the hard core

— the alcoholic, the socially disabled, the one who's gone through life

for 20, 30 or 40 years and has not been able to function. In the

single-man area we probably have about 7,000 to 8,000 people like that

around this province.

Now, we've made some attempt…. Certainly the focus has been on the

young people or on the older people, on the older chronic type of

person, and the turnover off welfare is quite phenomenal. One has to

just look at the enormous number of referrals and training placements

that take place in the Canada Manpower programme, and in the kinds of

things that we do in terms of programmes that we fund through community

grants, where young people are going off welfare into these things.

We have broadened the amount of education facilities around the

province for those kinds of people for upgrading courses. But we are

still left, and I don't deny this, with the chronic hard-core single

people, and they are difficult to deal with. We cannot deal with them

in the hard…these are people who need some kind of sheltered,

semi-authoritarian kind of custodial situation for their own benefit,

for their own survival.

Of course, as we move into the detoxification centre things which I

talked about before dinner, we may look to salvage some. But the

primary focus has been, in terms of the welfare rolls, on those young

people, on the single mothers and the older women who now have an

opportunity for employment. So, I would say that 15 per cent figure is

way out of whack.

We're now looking to the kind of services that we're going to

develop, that the employment possibility among those groups is going to

be a lot closer to 50 per cent.

Hopefully, we'll be able to turn it around. We do have a hard-core

group, but the main focus has gone on the other groups, the middle aged

women, the single women with families, and the young people. That

movement is very, very large and constant, so I think we can be

optimistic about this.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS (West Vancouver–Howe Sound): I was pleased

to hear the Minister indicate the direction in which the department is

moving with regard to the matter of expanding numbers of employables

who fall within his departmental responsibility.

It's been a concern to me to recognize that over the past years the

function of social assistance has been principally on a sort of

donor-donee basis with the donee always trying to get a little bit

more, and the donor, essentially, resisting the obligation to give.

I hope I recognize in what the Minister says an attempt to move more

towards rehabilitation and to turn those people into producing members

of our society, and therefore to reduce their numbers on the rolls.

I hope the Minister will also think about this in line with what the

Member for Chilliwack (Mr. Schroeder) says, that there are people in

our society who are real producers, but not in the normal sense — not

in the sense that they go out and get a job and pay cheque. I'm

thinking of the single mother, a widow with children, and so on. It

always has seemed to wrong to me somehow or other that we don't

recognize the very valuable jobs they do. And I use jobs in the very

narrow sense of the word.

I wonder why, when social assistance is made available to them,

they're not looked upon as someone who is employed in an essential

responsibility to the community and paid accordingly, rather than on

the basis of a basic social allowance plus certain supplementary

grants. If those single parents are able to do a better job in the

raising of the children who are under their care, then perhaps those

children themselves will never fall into a situation where social

assistance is something upon which they have to lean.

We've heard some debate about the work ethic in the course of this

debate over the last two days. I always think the work ethic should

never be discussed under this department. Under the Department of

Education or the Department of Industrial Development we can talk about

work ethic as long as we want. But the people who must depend upon this

department for assistance are really those whom the work ethic has left

behind.

Perhaps it might be appropriate to draw your attention, Mr.

Chairman, to the fact that most people who talk about the work ethic

come from a socio-economic background with tremendous advantages such

as practically all of us in this House have — the advantages of health,

the advantages of education, the advantages of a family relationship,

which are denied to the people who fall within the rolls of social

assistance recipients. The work ethic is not something we can suggest

is their fault, but that they have been left behind.

[ Page 2252 ]

I appreciate that the taxpayer has a great concern, but when we look

at the budget that is provided here, great though it might be, and when

we consider the nature of the grants or allowances made by this

department, I can't really imagine that anyone would be encouraged to

turn to social assistance rather than the opportunity for a job, if

they were able to take that job.

I suspect that the actions of the federal government with regard to

unemployment insurance is probably a greater encouragement to leave the

work force than is any opportunity to go on social assistance. I would

like to see the day come when people are judged on the basis of the way

in which they perform, and that we would move to some differential

allowance basis on that account.

The Minister has already recognized this in some respects. People

who are in receipt of social assistance and who could go out and find a

job are allowed to make certain earnings without suffering any loss of

assistance. The Minister recognizes that those few extra dollars can

just make the difference between whether they fall back into social

assistance on a regular basis or whether they take a step out and say,

"Thank you very much; I'm now on my own." I think that that same kind

of treatment can be accorded those people who by reasons of their

situation, with children to look after, is one where they should also

get the same kind of recognition.

I must compliment the Minister on the way in which this report is

being presented. I must say I have difficulty reading it this way. But

I'm not concerned with the way the pages are printed; it's the material

that's contained. I think this is probably the best departmental report

I've ever seen introduced in this House since I came here in 1967.

Now if I may refer the Minister to page 34, perhaps he could

indicate the significance of table 20. It would suggest that from the

fiscal year ending March 31, 1971, to the following year the number of

recipients per month dropped by something like 10,000; from March 31,

1972, to March 31, 1973, the decrease was accelerated to about 18,000.

HON. MR. LEVI: What page are you looking at?

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Page 34, Mr. Minister, table 20.

We seem to have enjoyed for three successive years a drop in the

average number of recipients per month on basic social allowance. It

says that in 1970-1971 it dropped 10,000; in 1971-1972 it dropped

18,000. And it's estimated that the drop is now considerably less; the

decrease is about 1,000 per month.

I wonder if the Minister could indicate the significance of those drops in

those early years. I fully recognize that with Mincome coming in that made a

very great difference. But that was only in the year 1972-1973. Could the Minister

indicate why from the previous year there was a 10,000-person decrease? Then

if I could put his departmental comptroller to work for a minute, with regard

to the size of this vote, I notice that in the income financial statements to

December 31, 1973 — I'm referring to page P11 of the interim financial

statements — as of December 31, out of the social welfare vote, we'd only

spent $166 million out of $215 million, which was the allowance voted last year.

Yet in January of 1974, a supplemental warrant for another $7

million was granted by the Treasury Board. In light of these decreasing

numbers on social assistance, could you indicate why, first of all, we

have this large unexpended amount in December 31 and why there was a $7

million warrant in January of 1974? It would help me to understand this

vote better, Mr. Chairman.

HON. MR. LEVI: First of all, Mr. Chairman, the reduction in

the number of recipients certainly from 1972 to 1973 is really

indicated, if you take just that calendar year, by the effect of

unemployment insurance. The rules changed. Then it was — what? If

you worked eight weeks, you got unemployment…. It was an enormous

shift from welfare. I think in 1972 we experienced…. I'm trying to

think of the figure we had at the time. In the 10 months, the case load

dropped….

There was a phenomenal drop, almost a third at one stage in one

period of about three months. It dropped by almost a third because

people were going to work; and when they came out of work, instead of

going back on welfare, they were able to go on the unemployment

insurance because of the short period of time necessary to qualify.

That's one of the indications.

You're right about the Mincome. We did transfer people onto the Mincome.

Now with respect to the special warrant, for instance, we had to

increase the subsidization to the private hospitals and boarding homes

as a result of the increase in the minimum wage. There was a Pharmacare

cost — for the introduction — which had not been budgeted then. There

was, of course, the rates which came in June which were also part of

that and which were not budgeted for. What was the third thing?

As I recall, part of it was for the Mincome 60 to 64. You'll recall,

Mr. Member, in April of 1973 we did not pass on the increase. As a

result we had that $24 million. Of that $24 million we were able to

substantially increase the day care, to introduce the Mincome 60 to 64

and to pick up some of the costs of the increase in the welfare in June.

What we wound up with was a deficit of $7 million based on all of

that saving. And there was the handicapped person allowance as well. So

what we

[ Page 2253 ]

did in fact was to broaden the programmes by two,

that's the 60 to 64, the introduction of the Pharmacare — where we had

some costs there — and the increase because of the minimum wage in our

subsidization of private hospitals and boarding homes. I think that was

the reason we needed that extra $7 million, to carry us right the way

through.

MRS. D. WEBSTER (Vancouver South): I too would like to

congratulate the Minister on the excellence of the report that he has

put out for his department on the work that has been carried out and on

the sensitivity he and his department have had to the programmes that

are required for people who are in need of help.

The very fact it is now called Human Resources rather than Welfare

is one indication of the feeling of sympathy towards people, and

people's needs.

The programmes are of such fine quality it is very difficult to make

any remarks that would even question them. Mincome for the 60- to

65-year-olds has helped a great number of widows, and helped a great

number of women who have not been able to work outside of the home — women who have only had a very small income which they were unable to

live on previously.

The Pharmacare programme has been so widely welcomed by older people

it is very difficult to realize that this type of programme had never

been put in before. It is quite understandable that once a person

reaches the age of 65 the need for prescription drugs becomes

increased, and it is not the type of thing that is a one-time affair of

getting a prescription drug. Usually people who have to have it after

the age of 65 have to have it either on a continuous basis, or they

have to have it intermittently.

I appreciated the words of the Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound

(Mr. L.A. Williams) when he spoke about the work ethic and feeling that

that is still the prevalent feeling in our society. I realize how

important it is. There may be a hard core of people who don't really

feel the importance of the work ethic, but that is only a very small

group. Let me tell you, Mr. Chairman, that even people who have been on

welfare — or have been on Mincome, as we speak of it now, guaranteed

minimum income — feel the need for being productive and being useful.

I think one of the finest parts of the guaranteed minimum income has

been the guaranteed minimum income for the handicapped. As you know,

about a year ago we were speaking about the desperate condition in

which the handicapped found themselves when they only had something

between $75 and $135 a month on which to live. Their situation was much

worse than it was for the average citizen on a very low income, below

poverty level, because they also had the problems of transporting

themselves and having to have different types of equipment in then

homes that they never had before.

I don't know how much of that problem has been solved. I must say

that they probably still have two problems. One is finding meaningful

and useful employment, and the other is finding the type of place in

which to live so that they don't have to cope with stairs or with

stoves that they can't handle, or other equipment in their kitchens or

in their bathrooms. I would be very interested to know from the

Minister just how much change there has been in that type of condition.

I have at various times gone into the workshop for the handicapped

that formerly was in the Marpole area, and I used to talk to quite a

number of the people there. They were interested in two things. One was

finding a place to live — and they were really very capable of doing

this. But what they found was that the places they were able to get

were the kind that didn't have doors that were wide enough, or had

stairs and didn't have ramps. So they very often passed that

information on to some of the information centres who were also looking

for the same thing, for instance, for older people or for people on low

incomes.

The other thing was finding a meaningful type of employment. That is

not always easy. I am very pleased to see, for instance, that there are

handicapped being used in the legislative buildings here. There are

handicapped being used at the hospitals. At the Royal Jubilee Hospital,

for instance, one of the nurses who helps with the testing is a

wheelchair person. Just because she is in a wheelchair doesn't

necessarily mean that she is not capable of doing that sort of thing.

But very often we are hesitant to give employment to people who have a

handicap of one kind of another.

So it was a pleasure for me to see on page 48 that for the

Employment Project '73, 10 per cent of those who had been employed

under this special programme are handicapped. There are one or two

cases that rather interest me. I know of two cases of young women who

went into teaching. The one took her post-graduate work in continuing

education. This was in 1966 — and I hope this has changed during the

past two or three years. She had taken her post-graduate work and

graduated with a Master's degree, but when she finished she wasn't able

to find employment in British Columbia. She had to go to Ottawa, and is

working at a continuing education centre there.

The other was the case of a teacher who was blind from birth. She

went all the way through elementary school and the Jericho Hill school.

She went to a regular high school, and then went on to university. She

is very capable at finding her way around, and she was determined she

was going to teach. She received her teacher's certificate, but found it

[ Page 2254 ]

impossible to find a teaching job because no one would employ her.

Now I would like to ask the Minister if there has been any improvement in situations of this kind.

MR. H.A. CURTIS (Saanich and the Islands): Yesterday we did

touch on some of the mechanics of day care, and I see that that item is

in this vote — $10 million for the forthcoming fiscal year, as opposed

to $2.5 million for the last year. The Minister in his report, Services

for People, which I also find very well set out and most informative,

speaks frankly about the difficulties with respect to

federal-provincial cost sharing. In fact, quoting from page 21:

"The province has encountered some difficulty in reaching a suitable cost-sharing agreement with the federal government."

It goes on,

"Initially Ottawa agreed to accept the income test as

an acceptable basis for sharing. However, when the scope of the

day-care programme was realized, the federal government advised the

province that under the Canada Assistance Plan they would be willing to

share costs only for those persons who were in 'social need' or 'likely

to become in need.'"

Then the Minister, Mr. Chairman, states the provincial position in part:

"Low income is not considered a sufficient reason in

itself to establish social need. Details have not yet been completely

resolved, but we are still hopeful of a compromise that will enable us

to obtain sharing for the major portion of our programme without

destroying its direction."

Now, Mr. Chairman, to the Minister, to that last statement we can

only say on this side of the House, "Amen." I think we have to

understand that the $10 million designated for the coming fiscal year

is entirely provincial money. I would like the Minister to indicate

what the chances are of reaching agreement with the federal

jurisdiction on this particular point, with the understanding perhaps

that there may have to be a little compromise, a little give and take

between the federal position and the provincial position. But it would

be most reassuring to know that the very commendable day-care programme

in British Columbia could have some federal support, significant

federal support.

At the moment, again, it is entirely a provincial responsibility

coming from the provincial taxpayers. That is not sufficient reason to

cut back the programme or abandon it. Let us not suggest that for a

moment. But give us some encouragement, Mr. Minister.

HON. MR. LEVI: Mr. Member, we did bend, and we have agreed to

go part of the way with them, which will yield the province, as I

understand it, about $3.7 million on the sharing in terms of the $10

million that is budgeted here.

Let me say something while I am on my feet about day care for a

moment. Aide from the problem of developing day care in terms of space,

and the regulations which I referred to before dinner, there is the

problem of the very low salaries that people in the day-care field were

getting.

When we became the government, salaries were something like $250 and

$350 a month for people who were working in day-care centres with 20

children and who were trained, had a year of training. Now since that

time because of pressure, and they unionized, those salaries are up

around $475 and $575, and there's every indication that when their new

contract goes up they'll go up by perhaps another 10 per cent. These

are added costs to day care.

When we introduced the day-care programme and went the income-tested

way, it was something we did on our own, which the federal government

initially was not very accepting of, but since we've been attending so

many federal-provincial conferences…. And I must say that Marc Lalonde,

the federal Minister, has been very, very good in this area. I know he

has to deal with his own Treasury Board, but he did announce recently

that they would go the income-tested way, true in terms of people who

are in need or likely to be put in need, but it's more than the thin

edge of the wedge in this area.

I've also agreed in discussion with him, that one of the omissions

on our leaflet in respect to day care was that we did not indicate that

this was a programme that was shared. We have now rectified that. I

recently sent him a copy of a mock-up of our new leaflet — certainly

the federal government has to get credit in this as well.

We were reluctant when we were negotiating around the changes to in

any way compromise our position in respect to the income-tested

programme, but in the discussions it really amounted to us changing our

application form with one question. And we thought about it because we

were trying to establish a principle. Then we thought of the taxpayer,

of course, and we agreed to bend on that and we now have some agreement

on the share, so we have accomplished that. But when you try to develop

a programme around the income-tested thing you don't readily give it up

because before you know you might find yourself back into the

means-testing programme.

MR. WALLACE: I'd like to make a few comments on the general theme of this vote and respond to some of the comments of the Premier.

I was somewhat amazed that the Premier would cite some illegal act

which has been prosecuted successfully, and in some way contrast that

with the

[ Page 2255 ]

natural concern of the taxpayer on the spending of social services money.

In my opinion two wrongs never make a right. I hope he doesn't think

for one minute, the Premier of this province, as far as we're concerned

in this party that we would condone for one minute price-fixing on

cement or sugar or anything else. I think it was a very unfair comment

the Premier made, to suggest that because there is some public

apprehension about expanding social programmes that we turn a blind eye

to illegal and criminal acts in the private sector. There's no way that

we're prepared to accept that kind of comparison of apples and oranges.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: Oh, Roy is awake again, Mr. Chairman. Would you

let him go back to sleep? Roy always wakes up when we get a little

close to the bone, I notice, and touch such a tender nerve.

The fact is that I also have great respect for this Minister. I've

had a great deal to do with his actions in this department and I want

to make it quite clear my comments about the Premier's comments are

quite divorced from what I would like to say about the department of

social assistance.

The fact is that the social welfare programmes are broadening

wisely, well or otherwise in different provinces and all across the

country. The fact is that the people of Canada are standing aghast at

the farce of the unemployment insurance system in this country. You

can't blame an ordinary man or a businessman who does an honest day's

labour and earns an honest day's wage, pays his income tax then turns

round and finds that a massive miscalculation of federal taxpayers'

money is being squandered through the unemployment insurance system.

I don't say that should be the cause for criticism of this

government's plans. Not at all. In fact it's very unfortunate that we

should tend to criticize the social assistance programmes in British

Columbia because of some farce that goes on in Ottawa, but these, Mr.

Chairman, are the facts. People in this country are sick and tired of

seeing their hard-earned tax money being frittered away in various

forms of abuse. Surely the most ridiculous and indescribable mess of

administration and poor planning is the example set by the federal

government in its unemployment insurance scheme.

I've every sympathy with the ordinary taxpayer and the businessman

who says to himself, "What's the point? I earn my living. I create

jobs. I live within the law. I pay my taxes and what happens?" He turns

around and sees the flagrant abuse that goes on at the federal level.

As a result, unfortunately, he tends to be unfairly critical of the

provincial efforts which this government is making.

I think the Premier of this province had better understand that this

is a national country we're living in and that what happens in Ottawa

echoes and re-echoes in every province in this country. The ridiculous

kind of argument that the Premier came up with is not befitting his

intelligence and his usual fair approach. To start talking about the

cement companies and compare it with the point raised by a Member of

the opposition is just ridiculous.

Having got that off my chest, Mr. Chairman, I just would like to say

that there is some natural concern among the citizens of this province.

I think the Minister in his replies tonight has gone a long way to

satisfying many of the questions which I'm sure citizens of British

Columbia have been asking.

I quoted yesterday what was called the "real poverty report." This

was a report submitted by four members of the original Croll Senate

Poverty Committee. Senator Croll has an outstanding record in service

to the Canadian people in trying to investigate and make

recommendations regarding social problems.

Apart from Senator Croll, the other members of the committee

apparently just flitted from spot to spot in Canada doing a very

superficial job, and four of the members of the committee resigned.

Then after their study, they submitted what they called "the real

poverty report" and it's a very illuminating book.

But very central to the report which these four men compiled was the

point raised by the Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. L.A.

Williams), that 75 per cent to 80 per cent of the people receiving

social assistance are in the grip of circumstances beyond their

control. Some of them are born into poverty; they're born into broken

homes, to poverty, to malnutrition, lack of access to education — all

the disadvantages you can imagine.

There's no way you can expect children in that environment to grow

up and be ambitious, productive, well educated citizens who can'

compete in the open market for jobs or for success. I recognize very

clearly that it is a small percentage of citizens who might, for

various reasons, choose to try and use and abuse the social services.

But I wouldn't, with respect, undersell the value of work, regardless

of the number of dollars per hour.

The Minister quite rightly stated, "Why would you sit on your

backside on welfare at 70 cents an hour when you can make $2.50 an hour

mopping floors?" I accept that argument; there are some people who

respond to the incentive of work. I quoted the example of people locked

up in provincial and federal jails who would give anything to be given

the opportunity to do even the very menial of tasks.

Work, in my belief, is therapeutic and that is not a glorification

of the work ethic per se but just a recognition of human reaction and

response. So, again, I say to the Minister that it seems to me the

[ Page 2256 ]

most positive, encouraging, enlightened way to

approach this problem by trying to raise the amount which persons on

social assistance can earn. We talked about $50 for a single person,

$100 for a married person.

I just repeat the plea, Mr. Chairman, to the Minister through you,

that it would seem to me that is the most stimulating incentive kind of

approach to social assistance, that the person should be given the

maximum possible incentive to earn dollars over and above the social

assistance level.

In passing I also want to express my appreciation of the Minister's

raising of the subsidy to the nursing home and the boarding home

persons at a time when the cost of living and the inflationary effects

of the economy made it very difficult for these people to be adequately

cared for I accept the progress that's been made in that direction.

I would just like to finish this little comment, Mr. Chairman, by

trying to point out what I see as a complete contradiction in the

Minister's policy. I'm sorry to have to go back onto this business of

day care. But in day care the eligibility is decided purely on the

basis of income. Therefore the federal government doesn't share — at

least the Minister has just mentioned that there's going to be some

kind of sharing — because this government chooses to ignore assets to a

greater or lesser degree.

It is my understanding, in terms of homemaking services, that if the

person applies through the Department of Health it is simply a matter

of income assessment. But if you apply through Human Resources for

homemaker services, both income and assets are taken into account. I

just happen to feel that to some degree assets should be taken into

account, but would the Minister just clarify: is there not a

contradiction that where we are providing taxpayers' money to provide

day care and it's only income that's considered, in the case of

homemaker services which is equally important in my view — in fact, in

the view of anybody who came before our committee last year, as the

Minister of Education knows — why is it that the homemaker applicant

has to have both assets and income taken into account? I just think

it's a bit of a contradiction there.

Another small point, but in relation to day care, Mr. Chairman.

There are two or three classifications; there is the group day care and

the family day care, and there is the in-home type where the person

providing the care really has no inspection or any substantial

standards to meet. Yet the family day-care person who provides this

service certainly has a great deal of supervision and inspection.

It would seem to me that the person providing that degree of

service, and subject to inspection and supervision and standards,

should be entitled to a greater payment. Again the Minister can correct

me if I am wrong, but I understand that in both types, the maximum

payment is $75 per month per child. I wonder if the Minister would

consider raising the payment to the family day-care provider.

Lastly, I wonder if the Minister could give us some kind of….

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: I think for the group day care it is a maximum

of $100 per month per child. As I say, it is just a question of the

effort and standard that is provided in the two different types of day

care. I just wonder if it wouldn't be reasonable that the family type

should perhaps be allowed a higher level — either that or the in-home

type.

Incidentally Mr. Chairman, the in-home type of day care looks after

the younger child, as I understand it, under three years of age. It

would seem to me that maybe it's more important that there should be

supervision and inspection of standards for care of the younger child

than slightly older children. Although, indeed, there should be

supervision at all levels of day care.

Could the Minister give us a rough breakdown as to the total of how

many attend the three different types of day care — the group, the

family and the in-home? I wonder if we could have some rough outline of

how the $10 million is going to be broken down. How much of it is on

capital grants? How much is on equipment? He has already answered the

other question I had in mind as to the degree of matching grants. I

wonder if he could confirm that the matching grant will be $3.7

million, meaning that we'll actually be spending $6.3 of the $10

million.

HON. MR. LEVI: Mr. Member, the group day care is $110 now; we

increased that in November. We are looking at the rates. We are having

to look at all of these rates.

Inspection — visitation, I think, is a more preferable term. There is such a project taking place in North Vancouver.

Interjection.

HON. MR. LEVI: It's true, yes. Well, some word other than inspection.

Such a project has been taking place in North Vancouver. I have

discussed with the staff how we can really help these people. We are

not out there to catch them doing something wrong but rather to see

what kind of help we can give them. We are now trying to build this

into the various day-care information centres. We have one in

Vancouver, one here and we are moving to set one up in Prince George.

There will be this kind of visiting and helping.

On the rates: we're looking at all rates that we pay

[ Page 2257 ]

right now, and I will be making a statement sometime in May about what is going to happen.

On the homemaker thing — the Member may have been out of the House — I did announce that one of the major thrusts in the department is going

to be in homemaker, and that we want to move towards the income-tested

programme in the same way as we did with the day care. I noticed it was

in the papers tonight. That's what we are going to do.

There will be a report reading in about three weeks on the total

homemaker situation in the province. Based on that report and the kind

of training we can get going, we really expect to broaden this

programme and to move away from the means tested and asset-type

disqualifications. We will want to go to the income-tested programme.

I think it meets part of the problem that the Hon. Member constantly

refers to in terms of the chronic care field. If we can present some

input into that, then I think it's well worthwhile. In agreement and in

cooperation with my colleague the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Cocke)

who is doing the home nursing care, we will do the homemaker care, and

I think that we can move a long way towards that.

I would expect to see a doubling of the people involved in the

delivery of homemaker care in this fiscal year — going from something

like 1,100 to probably around 2,300 to 2,400 people. That will deliver

an enormous amount of service.

I did say last night that we may have to look at the employment of

full-time homemakers who can go around on a regular routine, some way

the same way in which some of the nurses do their visits. But that's

really very much in the cards. We've allotted money for it in the

programme, and that will be happening.

On the day care: as you know, we've gone from about 2,600 in

September, 1972, to something like…it is over 10,000 as of now, the

number of children being served by day care. We have approximately

6,400 children in the in-home day care; the group and family care is

3,100, and then we have, I think, about 800 children in the

after-school programmes — for around 10,000. Those figures are, by the

way, Mr. Member, available on page 18 of our report.

I think that covers the questions you asked me.

MR. WALLACE: You mentioned, Mr. Minister, that the money has

been allotted for home care in vote 118. I wonder if you could describe

just where it is, how much it is. Does the Minister have any plans to

attend the annual meeting of the Homemakers Association in Sorrento at

the end of the month? I imagine the kind of debate and information

that's been exchanged tonight will be absolutely invaluable. They are

the keenest bunch of people I've ever met in my life. I am wondering if

the Minister is considering attending their annual meeting.

HON. MR. LEVI: The vote for the homemaker is actually

contained in the large sub-vote 31. We didn't break it out because we

haven't really developed it to the size I feel we should.

I can't remember whether I've accepted that invitation to go there.

I have had two invitations to go and I'm afraid…. I'll try and tell the

Member in the corridor, but I can't remember now.

MR. PHILLIPS: Just one other point that I'd like to explore

with the Minister. I hope I am not transgressing on an area that is out

of his jurisdiction.

Under this vote is guaranteed minimum Mincome and Medicare, medical

services and drugs. It bothers me, Mr. Chairman, through you to the

Minister, that we are providing services to our elderly citizens here

in British Columbia that are not available to them in other provinces

in Canada.

I wonder if when you attend these inter-provincial Minister's

conferences, if when the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Barrett)…. We

give subsidy to the Province of Quebec, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland,

et cetera. But should the elderly who live in these provinces receive

any less in the way of benefits than those who are elderly and live

here in British Columbia?

I think this is a very valid point. I don't know what your views are

on negative income tax or guaranteed annual wage. I know they are

trying a system in Manitoba. It bothers me. I suppose it bothers me

more so than some other people because having come from New Brunswick,

and that's termed as a have-not province. If my mother were living, at

the age she would be today she would be receiving less in the area of

benefits than she would be if she were living in the Province of

British Columbia. I somehow don't feel that's fair.

Maybe the money we are giving to these have-not provinces should be

given to the individuals instead of to governments or industry or other

sources in that province.

What are we going to do to sort of level us off? Should those people

in those provinces have less than those who maybe migrate here from

Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta? There are a lot of elderly people

who do come here to finish off their golden years. What is the

Minister's feeling about this sort of inequity of payments to the

elderly people?

HON. MR. LEVI: Well, Mr. Member, in September there was a

provincial Minister's conference in Quebec and I was chairman. We at

that time reiterated the statement that we made in April of 1973, and

which the Premier made at the First Minister's conference in May of

We stated that we were prepared as a province to see that the Canada

Assistance Plan was so arranged that a greater percentage of sharing

went to the

[ Page 2258 ]

have-not provinces in order to create this kind of

equity across the country as well as whatever that thing is with the

equalization payments.

But we said that we would be very much in agreement to see this kind

of change in the 50-50 thing. That was really nice for the Ottawa

people to lay that down, but it doesn't relate to the have or the

have-not provinces. We've indicated on a number of occasions that we

would like to see this kind of thing happen.

Quebec did a paper in April of 1973 in which they indicated, taking

into account the age, the number of old people, the unemployment rate

and a number of other economic factors that they could see, that the

have-not provinces — I think they used Newfoundland as the example,

which has the all-time high of unemployment — they would be sharing at

the rate of 75 to 80 per cent. That would be federal sharing, their

contribution. And they need it; they really do need it.

I know at the conferences when I listened to the Ministers from the

Atlantic provinces…. Certainly the inequity does exist. And we have

stated very candidly — and the Premier stated it — that we would be

agreeable in terms of the federal government discussing this. In fact,

the federal Minister said to me, "Would B.C. be prepared to accept less

than 50 per cent?" And I said that we are open to discussion on this

matter. Because we do need to make it equal.

On the other hand, in respect to, for instance, Pharmacare, we've

had a number of inquiries. For instance, Manitoba is moving towards a

pharmacare programme. Alberta has a near-pharmacare programme, picking

up some 80 per cent of the cost. Saskatchewan has the same. I think

Ontario is looking at their Blue Cross situation.

We're probably going to move into the same kind of situation with

Pharmacare and this kind of thing across the country as we did do with

the medical plan and with the social insurance. It would be very good,

I think, if we could bring it in all at once across the country. But

that's not possible. It's the same with Mincome. There is a great deal

of interest in our Mincome. Manitoba will be moving to a Mincome

programme, and we've had enquiries from other provinces.

Yes, I think, as the Member says, if we could have that kind of

equality it would be extremely useful. On the other hand, our cost of

living is higher here than it is back there. This is always one of the

things that's concerned me about the kind of across-the-board increase,

say, in the federal civil service, which really doesn't relate to some

of the realities back east versus what's going on out here.

While I'm on my feet I do want to take the opportunity to say

publicly that I not only want to thank the staff of the Pharmacare

operation, but I want to pay particular tribute to the pharmacists, who

were extremely cooperative with us in developing this programme. In

fact, without their cooperation we couldn't have developed it. We met

with them on a number of occasions and they offered a lot of

suggestions, some of them hard-nosed suggestions. We did discuss with

them the increasing of their dispensing fee, which had not been

increased for some time. We did that; we took it up to $2.20.

But I must say their cooperation in terms of this plan — and the

medical profession — but particularly the pharmacists, who were the

first ones to get the programme out to the public…. I think there's a

real vote of thanks due by the people of this province, because they

did an excellent job for us.

Vote 118 approved.

Vote 119: New Denver Pavilion, $168,000 — approved.

On vote 120: child welfare division — administration, $575,922.

MR. PHILLIPS: Maybe I was out of the House — and the Minister

can correct me if I was — but what is his policy now with the regard to

the adoption by white parents of Indian children? I wrote you some time

ago, Mr. Minister, about a case. I haven't received a reply yet; maybe

it's because you are checking into it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. There was a lengthy explanation of this earlier.

MR. PHILLIPS: I'm just asking the Minister. This is the vote

that it should come under. I haven't received a reply from you on that

particular occasion yet. Will you be advising me shortly?

HON. MR. LEVI: Mr. Member, I might just say that we have

announced a change in policy. Every person involved in this particular

situation, every parent who is an adopting parent, is being informed by

letter as to what the situation is. It is roughly that the thing did go

through appeal; we were upheld in that appeal by a decision of five to

none. We are looking now for the end of the 60 days in relation to what

possibly might be an appeal, say, to the supreme court. W e are in any

case preparing the documentation. Hopefully, there. won't be an appeal

and wp will start processing these appeals.

Everybody will be notified and are in the process of being notified.

MR. WALLACE: I wonder if the Minister could respond to

certain specific requirements which were brought out by the

Attorney-General's task force with respect to commitment of children to

care. I

[ Page 2259 ]

would just very quickly mention three or four of

the proposals and the Minister can tell us if they've been implemented

or are about to be implemented.

Apparently it has not always been the case that before a child is

committed to the superintendent of child welfare there's always a

pre-sentence report. It was certainly one of the recommendations of the

task force that no child should ever be committed to care without a

pre-sentence report.

The second point was that if indeed it was decided that a child

should be committed to a foster home, or some other facility, that it

be in the reasonable geographic region as to where the child resides,

for obvious reasons.

The third point, which I think is very important, is that the

initial commitment should not exceed six months. It was also suggested

that if an extension is deemed desirable, any extension of the original

committed period should only be at the approval of the judge of the

family division of the provincial court. If there were to be any

application for extension of the commitment period of the child, both

the child and the parents should be given an opportunity to contest the

application. This seems only right and fair.

The other side of that coin is that if the authorities should deem

it desirable that during the period of commitment the child should be

returned to the parents, that only can be done with the approval of a

judge of the family division of the provincial court. I think in

dealing with children — and the point was touched on by the Member for

Columbia River (Mr. Chabot) earlier on today — there can be nothing

more traumatic in the long run to a child than to be moved back and

forth between different homes or facilities. I'm not telling the

Minister anything he doesn't know.

But it is so important that it should be repeated. Any child

required to be taken from the parents and placed in some kind of a home

or a foster home or whatever facility…. This should be done as

infrequently as can possibly be achieved.

A number of times I've come across cases in my family practice where

we have a young adolescent who is in trouble of one kind or another and

doing poorly at school and so on. One often finds that there has been a

very considerable degree of instability in regard to the family

management simply because the child was, perhaps for good reason,

removed from the parents. But the degree to which the child may be

moved back and forth between an institutional type of facility and a

foster home and from one foster home to another, just has to be the

most damaging thing to a young growing child.

I felt, when I read the report on the Attorney-General's task force,

that this showed an amazing amount of insight. You tend to think that

somebody dealing with the criminal justice system would tend to be

perhaps less sensitive to things such as the emotional development of a

child.

I finished up praising Dr. Matheson in another direction. I think he

has great ideas on the court systems and the drug problems, and I think

he has tremendous insight into human beings. These particular

recommendations seem to me to be equitable and reasonable, and I would

wonder if the Minister can implement them as regulations, or would they

require legislation?

HON. MR. LEVI: Mr. Member, as you know, the Berger commission is ranging very widely over all of these issues.

Let me say one thing about the movement of children. One of the

reasons we've introduced the special services to children programmed in

the therapeutic foster home programmes that we have going is, (

a) to

keep the child in the first instance in their home, and to try and

bring to that home whatever services we can — or if they have to be

moved, they move within the community.

I've been insisting for a long time, and there is good response on

this, that we are not moving children all over the province. That's

been one of the great difficulties when you tend to have these central

places. You may remember the arguments I used around the Willingdon

situation.

In terms of the Island Youth Centre, that has been reduced in size

and it's regionalized. Only on the odd emergency do we get somebody in

from somewhere else.

The New Denver one is being dispersed into two or three units

because it's very remote. That will be dispersed. So what we're looking

at is community and region.

I think, in terms of the general problems that you raised, that

these really are the things that are coming before the Berger

commission in this respect. I might also add that as part of the

recommendations referred to in terms of the report from the

Attorney-General's department there was also involved Dr. John

MacDonald, who is assistant professor at a social work school who was a

lawyer and has great experience in this field. He did write a minority

report in respect to this in the report.

We will not try to amend legislation until we give the Berger

commission an opportunity to come in with some recommendations. But I

must say in terms of practice, things are quite different. What we will

now wait for is the kind of experience that's going to take place in

the unified family court experiment. Then I think we will deal with

what they have suggested in their report as a kind of new code or

whatever it is. I think we can stay away from the amendment. In

practice we made some of the changes you referred to. In terms of the

legislation, that will come under recommendations from the commission.

[ Page 2260 ]

Vote 120 approved.

Vote 121: provincial home, Kamloops, $591,411 — approved.

On vote 122: child-care treatment centres, $2,276,248.

MR. PHILLIPS: Here we're discussing child-care treatment

centres, which I somehow feel are special treatment centres. But there

are other treatment centres that are on a seasonal basis which should

be included under this particular vote. I refer to summer camps.

The Minister and I have discussed this before, but I feel there are

many people in the community, some religious groups, Boy Scouts, who

provide, through voluntary service, summer camps in the summer where

young people can go. I refer specifically to young people who are in

the families of those on social welfare. There was a policy which I

worked on with the previous government whereby special assistance was

given directly to those summer camps on a basis of so much per child if

the child was taken out of a social welfare home. Mr. Minister, when

you assumed the responsibilities of the Department of Human Resources,

that policy has changed. I feel that change is for the worse.

Your whole theory is that you must give the money to the parents and

let them make the decision. Well, this is all very good in theory, but

I think we have to consider that a lot of these parents are human. Once

given that money, they are not going to spend an extra sum to send

their child who is on social welfare to a summer camp. I don't want to

go on and say it's spent in the beer parlour, although that's really

where I feel it must be.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! I would draw to the attention of the

Hon. Member that this vote is concerned only with the centres listed

and I would ask him to keep his remarks brief.

MR. PHILLIPS: I will, Mr. Chairman. I feel these are very

important child-care centres where this facility is provided by people

who give voluntarily of their services. It doesn't cost the department

of social welfare any money. I would like to see that policy

re-instituted where the money is given to these summer camps to provide

for these children of parents who are on social welfare an opportunity

to those children to get away and get out of the environment they're

in, to meet children of other walks of life, to learn how to maybe row,

to learn how to swim. It's an entirely different atmosphere. If we just

get five or six or a dozen children out of the social welfare homes,

show them there is another way of life, in the long run we will have

saved thousands and thousands of dollars and given these children a new

lease on life. This is really what is important.

I really feel that throughout the province many of these summer

camps would welcome into their programme children who are on social

welfare. But I feel the whole thing has died since you changed your

policy. I fought long and hard to get that policy instituted by the

previous government; now my efforts have sort of all been down the

drain. I'd like to hear the Minister's comments.

HON. MR. LEVI: It really isn't so that it's down the drain.

It may be in relation to the one you referred to when we communicated.

We have three ways of going. We give the money to the family, to the

children who are living at home in special circumstances. We look at

the children in care, the children who are in foster care, and we also

subsidize camps. We go three ways, the third way being the way you're

asking us to go. It's not something we've changed. In fact, we're

spending in excess of half-a-million dollars on this programme. We have

not changed the policy in that way; we have broadened it.

There is a question of whether we give it to the parents or to the

operation. I'm quite prepared to talk to the Member outside of the

chamber about this one. But, no, we haven't really changed the policy;

the policy is still the same. We've enriched it with more money, but

it's still the same in terms of the three ways of going on this. I

think the Moberly Lake one is the one you're talking about.

MR. WALLACE: I'd just like to mention two things. I notice the staff increased from 112 to 175, which is a substantial increase.

More importantly, I would just like to touch on the New Denver Youth

Centre. A few moments ago, we were agreed that children, where

possible, should be looked after in a location close to where they were

born and had their early childhood. But I would just like to read a

letter I received from one of the professional people who have been

associated with the New Denver Youth Centre. I understand the Minister

is planning to close it down or reduce its scope of activity. At least

there is some policy in the department to reduce its activity. I'll

just quickly read a quote from a letter. This professional says:

"I have been closely associated with this centre for a

number of years. It has been providing an excellent and invaluable

service for some 30 delinquent or problem boys from all over the

province on an institutional basis. Not only are these boys beyond

management in their own communities, but they are put into a salubrious

and understanding environment and provided with consistent

organizations of their lives and self-discipline, as well as academic

discipline.

[ Page 2261 ]

"I have worked closely with some of these boys and

have seen their progress in the centre. I can also testify to the high

calibre of the director and his staff.

"The boys are, by and large, the tidewash of urban

society and good symptoms of its failure. It seems to me there is a

very strong place for an institution of this kind which combines some

of the features of Outward Bound training with some psychiatric

supervision which the centre has always had.

"I think that if you had the time, you would find a

personal visit of great interest. I think you too might doubt the

wisdom of the government's decision to close the centre.

"P.S. The plant and buildings at the present time are

adapted for the purpose of dormitories, classrooms, et cetera, and it

would be a considerable expense to make any conversion."

First of all, I wonder if the Minister would elaborate on the

reasons for closing it down or changing its use. He mentioned a moment

ago that it's a rather remote location. If the policy is irreversible,

would he consider a pilot project in the New Denver region for the

treatment of drug addicts?

I talked about diversity and approaches this afternoon. One form of

approach which has often been mooted but I don't know to what degree

it's ever been implemented is to take the drug addict away from the

city scene, away from the downtown-urban area where there seems to be

great temptation to remain on drugs. If they're trying to get off

drugs, the difficulty is increased by the surroundings. It has often

been said a more remote and isolated area might serve the purpose of

helping drug addicts to forget the past and stay away from drugs. One

time, when we were discussing Ocean Falls, that particular location was

also put forward on this basis. As a remote part of the countryside, it

might be useful for the rehabilitation of drug addicts. I wonder if the

policy regarding New Denver Youth Centre is irreversible. Would the

Minister give some thought to its use in a drug addiction

rehabilitation programme?

HON. MR. LEVI: Mr. Member, the first question you asked was

about the child-care treatment centres. In the last year's vote, there

were just two treatment centres, the Island Youth Centre which was

formerly Brannan Lake, and the New Denver centres, the Island Youth

Centre which was formerly Brannan Lake, and the New Denver Youth

Centre. Since then, of course, in the integration process, we've taken

in Seven Oaks children's centre in Victoria, the receiving and

diagnostic centre in Victoria, the Royal Victoria group home. That

accounts for that increase.

On the question of New Denver we looked at it very carefully. I was

up there myself. We are closing it down because it's along with the

policy of decentralization. Most of those boys hardly ever had visits

because they came from all over the place. We are going to use the

plant and the facilities; we are going to move the senior citizens out

of the New Denver pavilion, which either needs to be torn down or

completely rebuilt, and move them into that place to increase the

numbers. There are 16 living in very crowded quarters. We'll move those

16 in, probably double the number.

We spoke to the mayor about this situation; the MLA has been

informed. There'll be no loss of revenue to the district and there will

be maximum use made of the plant.

In terms of young people, we've got to deal with them. If they have

to go away, they've got to go away somewhere in their general community

and not way up there. I was up there. I had never been up there before

from that end where you go around Cape Horn, I think they call it. It's

very, very remote. Frankly it is in line with the policy. The resources

will be set up in New Denver and two or three areas in the Kootenays

and in the central Interior, which is much more in keeping with what we

are doing and where the demand is. That's why.

On the remote community in terms of the drug addict thing, I think I

said earlier this afternoon that what we are looking at the moment is

the voluntary kind of thing. We haven't got to the remote community

concept yet.

Vote 122 approved.

Vote 123: programmes for seniors, $332,046 — approved.

Vote 124: education of soldiers' dependent children and expenses, $46,000 — approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The committee reports resolutions and asks leave to sit again.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. Members, before we adjourn, in committee

statements were made about graft in the parliamentary restaurant and

were withdrawn by the Hon. Member for Columbia River (Mr. Chabot). I

wish to inform the House that a committee….

MR. CHABOT: You don't know what happened in committee.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! As a result of that statement, I

wish to inform the House that last week I asked Members of this House

to form a committee to look into legislative facilities, including the

dining

[ Page 2262 ]

room, and to make recommendations with respect to

the same. One of the recommendations will deal with the question of

Members obtaining meals at less than the regular outside price.

MR. CHABOT: On a point of order, it is most unfortunate that

you have raised this subject tonight in view of the fact that on

numerous occasions you have stated that you are not aware of what takes

place in committee. Now you make it your business, because you appear

to be offended, to discuss a matter which was discussed in committee. I

think it is most regrettable, Mr. Speaker, for you to do that. It's not

consistent with your role as Speaker of this House.

MR. SPEAKER: Order! You're attacking the Speaker again.

Whether you attack the Speaker in committee or attack him in the House,

it is a breach of privilege of the House. I find it extraordinary that

this House would tolerate an attack on the Speaker. I happen to know

what happened in committee, and because I know what happened in

committee, I will not tolerate an attack on myself as Speaker or any

other Member of the House in the manner that was taken by the Member

for Columbia River (Mr. Chabot). I insist that the House support the

dignity of the Chair and the right of this House to order its own

affairs without breaches of privilege of the sort that occurred in

committee.

HON. MR. BARRETT: On that point, perhaps your record of what

took place in committee did not include the fact that the Member

withdrew. I think that the Hon. Member withdrew his statement

completely and I think perhaps the matter would be best left to rest

there. It was a complete withdrawal, Mr. Speaker, and I am pleased to

report that to you.

MR. SPEAKER: I am reporting, however, to the House that a

committee of the House composed of Members of the House has been asked

by me to look into the whole facilities of the chamber and the

facilities for Members. I hope that they will meet as soon as possible

to deal with all these questions that deal with facilities in this

Legislature.

MR. CURTIS: On a point of order, I find this entire matter

most regrettable. I may be out of order but I would, as a Member of the

opposition side of the House, express the very sincere hope that the

Member for Columbia River (Mr. Chabot) and you, Mr. Speaker, could

discuss this matter privately, where I believe it belongs.

MR. SMITH: May I ask who is serving on the committee? Is it a

committee of the House? As far as the Members of the opposition are

concerned, we are unaware of the appointment of that committee

unless....

MR. SPEAKER: I have written letters asking Members of the

House to act on the committee. The Hon. Member for Cariboo (Mr. Fraser)

is one that I've asked; the Hon. Member for North Okanagan (Mrs.

Jordan) is another; I believe I have asked the Hon. Member for South

Peace River (Mr. Phillips) to act; I have asked the Hon. Member for Oak

Bay (Mr. Wallace). And I have asked Members from the other side of the

House to act on this committee to deal with legislative facilities — that includes offices, includes your help, staff and all these matters

that affect the Hon. Members in the discharge of their duties,

including the facilities in the dining room as well.

MR. SMITH: Thank you for bringing that matter to my

attention, Mr. Speaker, but isn't it customary when a committee of the

House is set up that the House decide who will decide on the committee

or at least who will sit on the committee or at least the caucuses of

the parties...?

MR. SPEAKER: There are two methods under our rules in which

it can be done. One is under the Legislative Procedure and Practice

Inquiry Act, which was passed by this House in 1972, unanimously, which

designates to the Speaker the obligation to appoint committees where he

deems it necessary. If the House doesn't choose to do so, the Speaker

is entitled to do so. I feel it's a matter that concerns every Member

of this House — the facilities that you use and the various problems

that exist for each Member in regard to the discharge of his duties.

Now, if you don't want to serve on that committee, or if you have

any suggestions for the Speaker in such a committee, please feel free

to approach me on the matter any time.

Hon. Mr. Barrett moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 10:45 p.m.

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